Day 27: Izamal

January 8, 2024

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We opened the door this morning, and Dodie exclaimed "new bird"! She grabbedthe camera and took these shots, which on reflection is nothing but a female Great Tailed Grackle, the most common bird here, no doubt, except for pigeons.

Our hotel is about one km from the central square and market, so it's an easy walk down there. There is also the major one of several Mayan pyramids directly in town, right on the way. We know that houses surround the pyramids and that last time we might not have found a way into or up them, but it was in our plan to look.

In our role as gormless tourists, we began by strolling along our street, which does lead to town. We were watching for possible restaurants and soon came to the sign below. We read first the pollos and cerdos - which we took to be chicken and pork, but grew concerned with borregos and caballos - sheep and horses. Say, what kind of restaurant is this, anyway! Reading on, ganado is cattle, and gatos is cats! Perros is dogs, conejos is rabbits, and gallos is roosters. Ok we got it! It's an animal feed store, not a tourist feed restauant. Pheew!

The next revelation along our street was a small gap in the buildings that turned out to be the only entrance to the giant pyramid of the town. Walking past and looking back a bit, you can see it. It's called Kinich Kakmo.

Once inside the gate, we see the government has supplied a helpful sign. It says that this is one of the most important constructions of Mesoamerica:

Although at this point we were looking more for breakfast than for important Mesoamerican structures, we went through the gate and up a bit.

After the first set of steps, there are further ones.

I noticed that a sun graphic had been installed in one step.

Looking back from even this modest height, the Convent is clearly visible.

Ahead was the final pyramid, but this we saved for later, because breakfast was calling.

The final pyramid - is way steeper than it looks.

Coming down the steps we had a look at one of those ubiquitous rooftop water tanks. According to my brother they are for heating the water. Sounds plausible since they are black, though some are white.

Here is a cargo bike serving as a garbage truck. The cargo bikes are so great. I would want one at home, but in hills or on the highway they would not do. They are just sort of indigenous to this flat and quiet place.

The centre of Izamal is a dramatic place, with its huge convent, covered arcades, and uniform yellow colour scheme.

We headed for the restaurant on the edge of the market, which is one we already knew. The menu prices are very reasonable, like 80 pesos for two eggs. Of course, here I launched into my insensitive tourist act. I asked for "pan tostado" with my eggs estrelladas, which was a style of eggs anyway not on the menu. The waitress denied having pan tostado. Undeterred, I said ok make it asado, which would mean taking a torta roll and putting it on the grill. The lady said no, denying that there was any pan at all. I stewed over that for a while, projecting a morose breakfast with no toast. But wait, what was that on the counter in the kitchen? Bread! Genuine Bimbo! and even torta tolls. Leaping from my chair I dragged the hapless waitress over and "What would you call this?!" Ok, she reluctantly agreed to throw me half a roll. Joy!

Back at the table, Dodie put a case for just ordering from the menu and not being a bug. But this fell on deaf ears. When our breakfasts came, though, it was clear why natively there is not toast with the meal. Any order automatically comes with a stack of hot corn tortillas.

See my bread, and the tortillas! Those drinks are papaya, and sandia (watermelon).

Dodie demonstrates (for me) how to work the tortillas. Only thing, I really am not fond of corn tortillas, so there could be further grief ahead for the waitresses of Yucatan.

From our chairs at the restaurant we could look over at some of the smallest market vendors, just sitting on a ledge. I could imagine that the one sage old lady pictured below was looking on with dismay at my antics.

But actually I went over and spoke to her after, and she gave me a big smile, so I'm ok.

Here is a mother and daughter, likely. They would be best to refuse that proffered Coke.

On our other side was a famous statue of Diego de Landa (1524-1579). He was the Franciscan priest who made a serious study of Mayan heritage in order to better destroy it. The 1971 statue here is interesting as statues of historic figures go, because he is depicted in a very unflattering way. The plaque test is kind of balanced, portraying him as a fanatical destroyer and also as a indefatigable builder. One thing of relevance to the Convent that is adjacent to the statue, is the Landa imported to it from Guatemala "Our Lady of Izamal". Our source refers to this as an "image", a point that will come up soon. It also holds that once the image was installed on the altar miracles began to occur. Some say that any miracles are likely due to Itzam Na, the Mayan God of Healing, who shrine was destroyed to build the Convent on this site.

For some reason we had mostly missed the market adjacent to our restaurant, the last time around. But now we had time, and were able to have a good look around. Some towns, as we've noted, seem very poor. But this town has a wealth of food, not to mention at least one giant electronics and moto store.

These ladies were making tortillas by hand.

Here on the day after Tres Res we might expect these pastries to be marked down. But maybe something like our endless Boxing Days, I still found a bakery making fresh ones today. They are still way too large for us to buy!

Philadelphia Cream Cheese filled! see the Three Kings: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Balthasar is the one usually depicted as black. He is also supposedly the youngest.

The underwear man lacks a stall, but has still made a sale!

A typical torta operation. Lots of meat chopping and stirring is involved.

These look overripe, but Star Fruit and mini Mangos are still good.

Gross out picture of the day. It joins yesterday's cow, though yesterday has so far not been able to be displayed due to a Cycleblaze glitch.

We know chickens, having been producers, and these are excellent ones.

I have been looking for a straw hat for in the garden for about a year. I checked our local stores, Amazon, and even looked in Spain and Portugal. There was either no availability or fabulous prices. But here they have them all over. The first price I was quoted was in Playa - 600 pesos, then Valladolid - 200 pesos, but this great hat was 100 pesos. I think I needed my sunglasses on, to look more cool.

Our next adventure was to the Convent - San Antonio de Padua. This was founded in 1549 by the Franciscans. Notably, in 1562 Bishop Landa imported a Virgin image, that was called the Virgin of Izamal. We had already noted that at the Landa statue. Now we were eager to see the Virgin herself.

The convent was crassly built atop a Mayan pyramid , called Pap-Hol-Chac. In early December there is a huge pilgrimage to this spot, and believers will be climbing these steps on their knees.

The large plaza on the hill, in front of the Convent

The image above the Convent door shows the famous Virgin of Izamal

In 1993 Pope John Paul II visited here, as well as other spots in Yucatan. As always, he made a big splash. Significantly, we read the whole town was painted yellow to spruce it up for his visit.

JP II blessed the indigenous people and all inhabitants of the Americas. (Not that he did any reparations.)

The front is done up in decorative Christmas mode.

From up on Convent hill we could look down on the Izamal square, over to the big pyramid, and down on the horse drawn carriages.

I could also look down on the market hat stall and the lady tht sold me mine. clearly I had not gone for the luxury 200 or even 160 peso models, but I love my hat.

And yeah, that guy Landa is still down there.

In Merida there was the Church of the Third Order of Christ and here the Chapel. Google thinks the Third Order refers to the likes of Carmelites, Dominicans, Augustinians, and such like. But this sign seems to refer to the Indians.

Dodie is always hoping that a Grackle will turn out to be a Cow Bird or something more exotic.

Nice views inside the Convent:

And here is the guy behind this place (and Silicon Valley?)

But wait for it, here now is the famous Virgin of Izamal.

Not that I want to be a party pooper, but I was underwhelmed by this Virgin, and suspicious too. Is this what Landa brought here in 1562? Did they have that type of plastic then? And look, this Virgin has her hands clasped straight in front. But look at the image on the wall: clasped to one side!

Or look at this photo from 1949: clasped to one side!

And how about J.P. II - what Virgin did they show him?

From this close-up, I don't think our girl is the one that greeted JP II!

However, the current model has certainly been lavished with a lot of high end garments. Like with other famous Virgins, this one has special clothes donated, and used on special occasions.

OK, here in the Church, and not in the Museum (of the plastic Virgin) that we paid 5 pesos to enter, is the image that I think Landa first brought. The inscription, signed by the Archbishop of Mexico, says that this is a true laser printed copy.

One more Virgin image in the "rose window" position in the main church.

As we are leaving the Convent, Dodie notices underfoot the remnant of a Mayan carving.

Back in the square another important thing is Coco ice cream. This stuff is #1, and impossible to find at home.

As we walked home, and given that the sidewalks are rather narrow, I was going along at the edge of the street. Dodie warned that this could be dangerous, so I turned around, and yes, I was at risk of being trampled by a horse?

We passed the big pyramid again, and I went up. The steps are sort of regular at first, but it gets steeper and the steps are just jumbled stones.

The small people below give some impression of the height. This is one of, or the only, pyramid in Yucatan that you are still allowed to climb on.

View to the jungly other side. There are 1800 Jaguars (Mayan: Balam) still at large in Yucatan.

At the Convent I had noticed a man with a tee shirt saying "I'm Munir". Here at the top of the pyramid, he was, with his whole family. They all had tee shirts from his (70th) birthday. I was impressed that even the little ones had appropriately sized ones. More impressive was that they carried the kids way up here.

Getting down was a chore for me. I had the idea that this could be used to thin the elderly population. When you are strong enough to get up here but not to get down, then there can be an automatic "sky burial" as the Tibetans do.

I went out about 4:30 looking for food, but found (again) that restaurants and everything else here tend to close at 4. Fortunately "our" restaurant was still open and I was able to come back with a chicken dinner and a pork cutlet dinner. For dessert I had the idea of a Marquesita, which is a crepe made here with edam cheese and a variety of optional fillings.

A rainbow for my walk home. This has been a really fun day.

Best of all, the biggest souvenir I have been able to con Dodie into loading on the bikes.

Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 1,109 km (689 miles)

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